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Trump Escalates Minnesota Crackdown But Sidelines DHS Chief Kristi Noem
Just two days after federal agents shot and killed a Minnesota VA ICU nurse, Alex Pretti, setting off massive protests and cementing Democrats to vote against funding for the Department of Homeland Security later this week, President Donald Trump appeared to double down on the administration’s efforts, declaring he is now sending his border czar, Tom Homan, to Minneapolis — a move some suggest signals trouble for Secretary Kristi Noem.
Trump’s announcement came barely hours after Fox News co-host Brian Kilmeade suggested it on “Fox & Friends.”
“What I would do is just bring Tom Homan in,” Kilmeade told his colleagues. “Tom Homan’s been marginalized. Go in there, Tom Homan’s got credibility on the left. He was Barack Obama and Jeh Johnson’s main guy. He’s got credibility, obviously, on the right.”
Homan, Kilmeade suggested, “should go in there, meet with the mayor and governor, and go in there and take charge. He knows this stuff backwards and forwards. There’s no more experienced person. He’s got the president’s trust, but for some reason, it’s been marginalized in the Minneapolis operation.”
Monday morning, around 8:30 AM, Trump wrote on Truth Social, “I am sending Tom Homan to Minnesota tonight.”
“He has not been involved in that area, but knows and likes many of the people there,” the president wrote. “Tom is tough but fair, and will report directly to me.”
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He continued, declaring that “a major investigation is going on with respect to the massive 20 Billion Dollar, Plus, Welfare Fraud that has taken place in Minnesota, and is at least partially responsible for the violent organized protests going on in the streets.”
“Additionally,” Trump added, “the DOJ and Congress are looking at ‘Congresswoman’ Illhan Omar, who left Somalia with NOTHING, and is now reportedly worth more than 44 Million Dollars. Time will tell all. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
Punchbowl News’ Jake Sherman reported that Trump sending in Tom Homan will be highly controversial for Senate Democrats, who are already preparing to fight DHS funding.
“As the Senate begins to consider how it may fund the government this week, the president is sending Tom Homan to Minnesota — something that will not give any comfort to Senate Democrats,” Sherman observed.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt appeared to suggest Homan will have an outsized role, extending past his “border czar” responsibilities.
“Homan will be managing ICE Operations on the ground in Minnesota to continue arresting the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens,” she wrote. “In addition, Tom will coordinate with those leading investigations into the massive, widespread fraud that has resulted in billions of taxpayer dollars being stolen from law-abiding citizens in Minnesota.”
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Some critics are suggesting that the Alex Pretti deadly shooting may signal the end of Secretary Kristi Noem’s tenure at DHS.
“The thing for the W.H. to know here is that Senate Democrats are going to want/insist on significant policy changes on how the Trump administration conducts interior enforcement. Whether it’s Homan or Noem at the wheel. Whether they are in Minneapolis or not,” Sherman wrote.
Others added more insight.
Axios Trump White House reporter Marc Caputo wrote, “Homan & DHS Secretary Kristi Noem have been at odds.”
Vox senior editor Benjy Sarlin noted, “Trump distancing Homan from everything that’s happened so far seems pretty relevant. Some on right have been trying to argue he’s the more competent person to empower over Noem/Bovino/Miller.”
Journalist Ahmed Baba wrote, “Prepare for the Trump Admin to blame all this on Kristi Noem and oust her, while Stephen Miller and Trump try to insulate themselves in spite of the fact they’re the driving force behind ICE’s authoritarian escalation. Already seeing leaks from DHS showing anger at Noem.”
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Image via Reuters
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
